


War-Wife

by Talimee



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6356119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talimee/pseuds/Talimee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her return to Dalsnes Sigrun pays a visit to someone very close to her warrior heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War-Wife

War-wife

 

Mid-week after her return to Dalsnes, Sigrun Eide was bored out of her skull. Bored of telling the same stories about what happened during the winter in København, bored of hearing the same stories about who died and who survived in Dalsnes and bored bored bored about having to wait for a new appointment to present itself since all regular units where already out on their missions for the summer. So it should not come as a shock to those who knew Sigrun Eide that she was currently fighting for her life.

The fight had been going on for a few minutes already and had started with an ambush. If Sigrun had had any mental capacity to spare she would have wondered why she hadn't sensed the proximity of such a foul beast but she did not have even a thought to spare as she and the beastly roe buck circled each other. And circle they did, around a venerable oak – a trunk so thick that four men could no circumspan it and a crown so wide it'd provide shadow for a small village. A watcher from above might have noticed the nearly perfect circle the meadow around the oak cut into the surrounding woods, the watcher on the ground noticed how the shallow cut she had managed to give the beast in their first bout grew close with writhing flesh.

„Dritt!“ she hissed through clenched teeth and gripped her dagger more firmly in her hand.

The buck pawed the ground with one hoof and danced sideways in an attempt to clear the trunk between them and to get behind her back. Sigrun side-stepped it and turned slightly, getting the tree behind her. As far as monstrosities went this beast was easy on the eyes. A white tuft of tail still stood at its behind, all four legs looked like a roe deer's legs should look and it even had some fur left in places. The antlers, though, and the oozing, snarling head …

It charged!

Sigrun took one step backwards and felt the solidity of a low-hanging branch in her back. She fixed her eyes on the pus-filled wounds that were where the beast's eyes should be and felt the malevolent presence behind them thoroughly bent on her destruction. Less than ten metres, away.

She would _not_ die here today.

The beast screamed rancid spittle into her face when she suddenly fell to her knees and sideways. Too late for the buck to stop it crashed head-first into the branch, which did not bend enough to absorb the beast's momentum, ripping it's head backwards as the rest of the body was carried forwards by its momentum. Exposing the neck.

Sigrun was already on the upswing, arm outstretched, dagger forwards. She felt the blade connect with contorted flesh, felt gravity, inertia and mass work the steel through hide, sinew and flesh, felt a spray of blood, heard an unearthly scream turn to a gurgle.

She fell on her face but pushed herself around and upwards again. Saw a half-severed head trying to turn towards her but too late and, coming from below, she buried her dagger up to the hilt inside the thing's cranium.

„What a mess,“ she grumbled as she stood up and looked down at herself. Her clothes were doused in blood and had already started to stink. She carefully lifted her shirt to inspect a patch of pain in her side but her searching eyes only found a welt of raised flesh where one of the horns must have grazed her but didn't break the skin. She let her shirt fall down again and bend down to retrieve her dagger but halted in a half-crouched position as if some stray thought had struck her. Gripping the antlers in her hand and bending its head backwards she started to saw away at the remaining flesh which connected the beast's head to its body. With a dull crack she split the spine some moments later and stood up again, beast head in hand. 

„Not too bad, I'd say,” she said with a smug grin as she looked down again at the misshapen head in her hand. She walked up to the trunk and wedged the head between the oak's trunk and a suitable branch. “I'll just leave that here.“ Looking up from below through the thick canopy of leaves she could see the bony remains of older beastly offerings she and the other hunters had made over the years. 

When returning to their old gods the Dalsnesers had re-consecrated the small church in the centre of town but every hunter knew that you just couldn't worship their Warrior Gods in a place where formerly forgiveness was preached. So they had searched and found a semi-secret place nearby. This tree was ancient and revered, standing just outside the boundaries of Old-Dalsnes, now well and truly inside the Silent World, but only hunters came here to pray, of course, so a little bit of danger during worship was expected and more often than not provided a suitable sacrifice to Thor, who was mainly worshipped here.

Sigrun watched the slow-moving leaves a while longer then flopped down to the earth, resting her back against the trunk and momentarily busying herself with cleaning her dagger.

„Guess you already knew that I was back,“ she said loudly and with the reassurance that every word of hers was heard, „but still wanted to greet you properly.“ She held her dagger up to her eyes and checked along the blade for nicks. “How have things been at yours? Had a go with that serpent again? Slew any Giants?” Sigrun put her dagger next to her on the ground and leaned back against the tree, allowing herself to wind down a little.

“Saw a few giants, too, this winter. And trolls …” Her eyes glazed over for a moment as she thought back to the months she had spent spend in Denmark, trying to fulfil her mission in that Helhole which seemed to spawn new deathly creatures every day. Trying to stay alive. “Thank you for keeping an eye on me – it's appreciated.”

She sat upright again, snatched her dagger and stood up. She walked two times around the trunk, carefully watching the forest edge, before she sheathed her weapon and climbed up a low-hanging branch. Several metres above ground she leaned against the tree again but kept a watchful eye on her surroundings.

“So, what did you think of my squad?”

What did _she_ think of her squad? It had been a bumpy ride, that was for sure. But very rewarding nonetheless. Sigrun smiled crookedly as she thought back to the various fuck-ups they had had. But they had survived and grown better by the experience.

Reynir was still meek and even with his budding Mage powers he appeared in a weird sense pre-ducked as if he always expected someone to tell him that he did wrong. But Freyja had so obviously put her mark on him and SHE would push him and drag him and seduce him towards power. Sigrun hoped she'd be there when he blew up his first troll. It would be spectacular!

Tuuri had grown more focused. She had been intelligent and energetic from the start, eager to tackle the things that bothered her and bend them to her will. But this winter had given her the sense of purpose and Mikkel had taught her cunning, Sigrun strongly suspected. The people in Keuuru would not know what hit them once Tuuri and her cousin got back.

Sigrun perked up again and cast a look around. She had the sense of some other presence nearby but could not spot any movement. Maybe it was only an animal or maybe another beast was nearby. Nothing moved in the mid-day heat however but the ever-dancing gnats. She relaxed a little and smiled. Maybe HE was around somewhere. Nevertheless, her instincts made her climb carefully to another branch higher up and settle there watching another part of the wilderness.

Thinking back to her squad and to Lalli, she was still quite surprised by the change her Finnish Mage had undergone. Like Tuuri, he had also grown more focused, as if his gaze had been redirected to the here and now and less to the there and then. And sometime during the winter he had stopped being skittish and shy. By Odin's beard, she could have sworn that she saw Lalli actually smile when they said their Goodbyes in Iceland! Although, Sigrun had to admit, it could also have been a grimace of relief because he finally got off the quarantine-ship.

And Emil had grown beyond her expectations. Something in him had hardened this winter, in the same way steel cooled in its mould and became useful. But he was still too emphatic sometimes and that could cost him his life. He had the potential to be an excellent fighter one day, if he survived until then.

Sigrun realized that she did not like the thought of Emil returning to the Swedish army. They had botched the job the first time around and she would be damned if she let them mess up the work she had put into Emil during the last months. One day soon she wanted to raid the Silent World again with all of them. The others were protected – either by Gods or by walls – but who would keep an eye out for her cleanser? She looked up again at the tree and made a decision.

“You know that I am yours, Thor,” she said casually but with a hint of steel in her voice. “I live for you and I'll die for you.” 'And in every battle I feel as if we're fighting side by side,' she continued in thought. “I want to ask you for something in return now: Look after Emil Västerström for me.” She pulled her dagger and casually drew it across her left thumb, waited a few moments for the blood to well up and pressed the digit forcefully onto the bark, leaving a smeared blood-print behind as part of the bargain with her God.

Sigrun was about to sheathe her weapon again and return to Dalsnes, as her attention was drawn to movement in the corner of her eye. A male figure had appeared at the border between wood and meadow. It strode purposefully through the thigh-high grass towards her and soon she could see long red-blond hair and beard, a linen tunic and trousers of the same material and a weapon at the man's side. It glistened in the sun and she could not decipher any details as to what kind of weapon it was, as little as she could recognize the stranger's features in the glaring mid-day sun.

“You don't do anything half-assed, do you?” The man stepped into the tree's shadow and suddenly she recognized her father.

“Not when I'm serious,” she said and swung herself down between man and beast-carcass. She poked it with her foot and casually tried to glean a remnant in her father's features of what she believed she had seen a moment earlier. But this was her father, all right, same reddish hair, same scars, same tooth gap.

“A messenger from Fosnavåg came – they need a captain for one of their squads,” her father said as they both turned to walk away.

“Finally!” Sigrun cheered.

“They'll send a boat this evening. And your mother insists that you spend _at least_ two hours with your parents before running off again.”

Sigrun snorted through a laugh and elbowed her father in the ribs. “ _Mom_ said that, yeah?”

As they continued their walk home Sigrun felt again a presence behind her, like a stare that bored into her head.

'See you on the battlefield' she thought back at it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy. Whatever befell me to write a Sigrun-insight-fic? I can't even blame alcohol! So, Good People of the Fandom, please tell me what you think about "my" Sigrun. I honestly can't tell if she's OOC or not. Also tell me if you spot any other inconsistencies or mistakes or whatnot.
> 
> The title is shamelessly kinda-stolen from an MMORPG I'm playing where Orc Clan-Chiefs marry several women who then become Forge-Wives, Hearth-Wives, Hunt-Wives, etc. That thought intrigued me for Sigrun, who, in my head-canon, sees herself as a part of Thor and Thor as a part of herself insofar as they fight for the benefit of mankind. It's a partnership on the battlefield.
> 
> Bonus sentence which had to be cut out because of tempo: 'And,' she added as an afterthought, 'tell Odin about Mikkel Madsen. They'll have fun together.'


End file.
